Dynamic disaster? Lessons from the Oasis ticketing row

Screengrab of Ticketmaster Oasis sale
12 Sep 2024

With headlines raging around Ticketmaster and Oasis, will there be fallout for arts organisations that price dynamically? Robin Cantrill-Fenwick thinks it’s time to get ahead of a growing conversation.

From Olympians to musicians: What sport can teach the arts

18 Sep 2024

Why are athletes praised for being elite, while the same epithet applied to musicians carries a connotation of being exclusionary? asks Michelle Robinson

Developing AI policy for trustees and CEOs

Abstract image
18 Sep 2024

Do your governance and leadership teams have a strategy for the use of AI? Or are your teams just experimenting without direction? Cath Hume thinks now’s the time to develop robust policy.

Unrest, rest and action

Group of people who walked from Bath to Bristol
11 Sep 2024

Part of the point of art is the lens it offers us to look at the world in a different way, to converse with people and perspectives that are not our own, to learn, to disagree and to share, writes Clare Reddington

A lost decade in culture

Nadine Dorries pictured with Boris Johnson and Michael Gove
19 Aug 2024

Asked to reflect on the effect of Conservative rule on culture, John Kampfner concludes it was a period of stunning missed opportunity.*

What have creative practices ever done for us?

Image of Grayson Perry vase
05 Aug 2024

Some humanities subjects have been declared obsolete and – by extension – useless areas of education and research. Might creative subjects become subject to the same criticism? ask Patrycja Kaszynska and Brian Ball.

Emerging arts leaders need more support

Group of theatre professionals onstage
29 Jul 2024

There is no need for alarm over an increase in churn of arts leaders, says Jodi Myers. But the sector should consider what support emerging leaders need to help prepare them for top jobs.

Let’s talk about excellence: A view from social arts practice

24 Jul 2024

A key question for the new government has to be how to create the conditions for artists of all backgrounds to flourish, argues Patrick Fox.

Arts funding policy under the new government

10 Jul 2024

In a period of fast change, financial pressures, despair about public service provision and political upheaval in the UK and abroad, Michelle Wright considers how policy will impact arts funding in the years to 2030.

Labour’s first 100 days

a giant dragon puppet handled by multiple puppeteers
04 Jul 2024

A change of government! Hurray. A chance for a new approach to running the country, to tax and spend, reflecting the wants and needs of everyone. Congratulations. Now the hard work begins, says David Micklem

Making the case for cultural devolution

03 Jul 2024

All parties seem to agree that devolution is a good thing but the details about how culture will feature are scant. Anne Torreggiani and Patrick Towell discuss why and how we need to build the evidence base.

Orchestral music as an agent for change

Young people playing classical music instruments
30 Jun 2024

In a radical reimagining of the classical music paradigm, Sarah Alexander shares the National Youth Orchestra’s model for engaging young people.

Don’t dance, because nobody's watching

Children dancing
24 Jun 2024

Dance is part of the national curriculum and schools are statutorily obliged to provide it. So why is a blind eye being turned to the dramatic decline in dance education at all levels? asks Joe Hallgarten.

Sector finances revelations pose big questions

image from Coventry City of Culture
19 Jun 2024

Following extensive research into the finances of arts organisations, Sarah Thelwall of MyCake reflects on the serious implications for the sector.

Uncomfortable truths

Set of 8 children's illustrations of young people
19 Jun 2024

Arts organisations are committed to reaching marginalised young people through their creative practice. But what happens when young people say things we don’t want to hear? asks Louise Govier.  

Teacher professionalism and the arts

Schoolchildren playing musical instruments
12 Jun 2024

Regardless of the setting, every school deserves a teacher who is afforded the space and professional trust to teach an inspiring arts curriculum, writes Steven Berryman.

Are arts students a burden on the taxpayer?

Drama students
05 Jun 2024

The Higher Education sector is up in arms about proposed cuts to creative arts courses which, it says, will further damage the UK's creative industries. Carole-Anne Upton thinks the proposal is short-sighted and harmful.

Closing the ‘enrichment gap’

Schoolboys at a drama workshop
03 Jun 2024

The erosion of opportunities to study the expressive arts in school has created a crisis in arts teaching, writes Sally Bacon.

You don’t get to work in the arts and support the monarchy

Image outside Buckingham Palace
22 May 2024

With a Royal garden party for the creative industries coming hot on the heels of cultural leaders’ participation in a trade mission to Saudi Arabia, Steven Hadley reflects on why the sector is happy to give legitimacy to imperialism and oppression. 

An explosive level of jeopardy

Images of school pupils with a lousie bourgeois sculpture
21 May 2024

The challenges facing London’s cultural sector are legion, but they cannot be addressed in isolation. Southbank Centre's Artistic Director Mark Ball says we need to create an interconnected national ecology.
 

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